Self-Criticism
by evilpinkpen
Summary: Or, five times McCoy's AU counterparts disparaged his masculinity, and that time he finally got revenge. Cracky, slashy silliness.


A/N: John Grimm (Doom) and John Kennex (Almost Human) guest star in this, my first five 'n one fic. That's right, my friends – three (3!) Karls for the price of one, five plus one times. Enjoy.

A/N 2: Crack fic is on crack. For real. Apparently, my brain needed a serious break from the emotional trauma that is _Verisimilitude_...

1

Leonard McCoy is willing to admit that meeting alternate versions of yourself from other planes of reality is actually pretty awesome – or at least, it is for the five seconds between realizing that's what they are and them opening their mouths for the first time.

Leonard _had_ been enjoying a nice, quiet, crisis-free afternoon working through a full inventory of the _Enterprise's_ medical stocks when, BAM. Bright flash of light, moment of utter disorientation, and next thing he knows, he's gone ass-over-elbows into a space that looks suspiciously like a filthy, concrete alleyway.

Two men loom over him in the gloom. They're for all intents identical; both are tall and rangy, with well-muscled shoulders. They both have short, messy dark hair and scruffy jawlines. Both are dressed in head-to-toe black, liberally accessorized with a variety of semi-concealed blades and firearms. And they're giving him identical jaded glares from identical hazel eyes.

The one with the dog tags quickly dismisses Leonard, turning away with an eye roll and the words, "Graceful entrance, twinkle toes."

The one with the badge on his belt takes the time to give him a long once-over, slowly raising a familiar sardonic brow as he does so. After his gaze has encompassed everything from Leonard's polished calf-high boots and bright blue medical tunic to his smooth-shaven cheeks and disheveled bangs, he snorts and mimics the first man's eye roll.

"Please tell me you were on your way to a costume party, Nancy," he says derisively.

And in that moment, Leonard decides that he's pretty much over the whole alternate selves thing.

2

The interdimensional entities who arranged this little shindig are predictably uncommunicative, though they at least bother to tell the trio that if they can make it to the roof of the tower in the center of this sadistic funhouse posing as a city, they'll be reunited with their own people and returned home. Unfortunately, they're suffering from a distinct lack of anything resembling a plan; Leonard's own contribution is stalled by the fact that he can't decide which John he wants to injure more.

There really isn't much to choose from between them; the cop's sarcasm is more gratuitous, the marine's is more pointed, and they're both much too busy trying to outdo the other to take into account such trivialities as mere survival.

Not that this place is really conducive to critical thinking. Or, you know, sanity. The three of them have barely made it ten blocks from their arrival point, and they've already been harangued in what Leonard suspects was Swahili by the head of a levitating cat – just the head, mind you; had some sort of sparkly dust thrown in their eyes by a flock of what he's pretty sure were pixies, said pixies apparently having taken offense at Kennex's idea of a "polite" greeting; and scaled the outside of a four-story building to escape a stampede of strange yellow ostriches that Grimm initiated by pulling a gun on one of the creatures.

Leonard is so over this shit.

They're draped over the uppermost landing of their momentary shelter's fire escape, watching the giant yellow birds stream by on the narrow street below, when Kennex says, out of nowhere, "Please tell me that you saw the caterpillar."

"What caterpillar?" Leonard grunts tiredly. Kennex waves a vague hand toward the block behind them.

"You know. The big-ass blue one smoking the hookah. You have to have seen it!"

Grimm makes an amused sound. "Should have asked it for a hit," he notes, smirking.

"You're joking, right?" Leonard says incredulously. "This situation is trippy enough already, thanks."

"Oh, I don't know," Kennex muses. "I'm pretty sure I've seen worse." He winks in what he evidently thinks is a rakish manner. "Turns out there _is_ a reason they tell you not to mix alcohol and hallucinogens."

"Oh, for the love of –" Leonard mutters, but Kennex talks over him easily.

"How 'bout you, Grimm?"

The marine looks thoughtful for a moment. "There may have been that one furlough, back in '43," he admits.

"Do you idiots really have no idea what that shit does to your neural tissue?" Leonard can't help but ask in disgust, and he gets the eye roll in stereo in lieu of a response. And, okay, that is actually _really_ annoying. He might have marginally more sympathy for Jim's complaints, now.

"Right. Thanks for the public service announcement, Sister Temperance," Grimm says mockingly. Kennex snickers in appreciation, and Leonard rolls his eyes at them in return_ – _he can't help it, it's like a reflex triggered by stupidity. They then proceed to ignore each other until the last of the fluffy yellow tide recedes below, at which point Leonard interrupts his counterparts' attempted one-upmanship in the matter of inebriated misdeeds with a pair of none-to-gentle shoves toward the ladder.

The two scruffy men may look Leonard's age, but it's increasingly obvious to him that he's the only adult on this little field trip.

Joy.

3

Sometime the next day – Leonard _thinks_ it's the next day, though in truth it's hard to be sure. At any rate, sometime later, after the encounters with the opera-singing toilets (sopranos, for the record), and the swarm of fanged butterflies (all a cheerful butter-yellow, and Leonard may never see a Monarch without shuddering again), and that one sticky green substance that they never do identify and which they are never going to speak of again, ever... yeah, sometime after all that, the Johns decide to wrestle a troll.

Leonard's pretty sure that said troll is completely indifferent to their existence until both Johns open fire on it. The twin looks of betrayed disbelief on their faces when the bullets _bounce _are almost funny enough to defer Leonard's transition from unspeakably aggravated to homicidally pissed off. Almost.

So the Johns end up tag-teaming the twelve-foot tall creature barehanded, and Leonard has to admit that maybe they aren't completely hopeless, after all, simply given the fact that they _survive_.

At one point a few minutes in, Kennex calls out, "I don't suppose that Her Royal Highness would deign to actually _assist_ here!"

Leonard hums mockingly. "Nope, I'm good."

"You can't ask a queen to risk her manicure like that," Grimm snarls, winded from being slammed into the brick wall of their current alley for the third time. "She might break a nail."

Leonard just rolls his eyes and uses one of Grimm's discarded semi-automatics to cap yet another of the saber-toothed bunnies that keep stalking behind the two occupied fighters.

He's pretty sure that neither of them even notices in the chaos.

4

Once the troll is incapacitated, Leonard more or less has to carry the Wonder Twins to the nearest secure shelter he can find – in this case, an abandoned gymnasium that smells like mildew and old sweat and, bafflingly, french toast. At any rate, it's well stocked with first aid supplies and hot water, and that's all Leonard cares about right now.

If you ask him how he feels about it in a few hours, _after_ the sentient, cinnamon-dusted pastries chase them back into the street, of course you'll get a different answer. But that's another story.

In the meantime, he helps the Johns get cleaned and patched up and leaves them sitting wrapped in towels, comparing scars and tattoos, while he prepares to do the same for himself. He turns toward the showers and strips off his shirts, only to hear a low whistle behind him and belatedly realize that he's just exposed the caduceus tattooed between his own shoulder blades.

"Well, I'll be damned," Kennex says, vastly amused. "You actually condescended to ink that lily-white skin? I'm so disappointed in you, Doctor."

Grimm tsks beside him. "There goes your reputation. Maybe things are different in your world, but where I come from, good girls do _not _get tattoos."

They both dissolve into giggles at this point, betraying the generous dose of painkillers he's given them, so Leonard just shakes his head and steps behind the shower curtain to finish undressing. He's sure they'll call that girly, as well, but he really couldn't care less. He has zero interest in comparing penis size.

After all, it's not like _he's_ ever had any complaints.

5

The next day or so is relatively quiet. They even manage a few hours of sleep at one point. Of course, then Grimm has to go and ruin it all by somehow pissing off a mob of ninja monkeys.

The monkeys, it seems, are vicious but fair. They show no interest in attacking anyone but Grimm; Leonard and Kennex end up all but dragging the infuriated marine into a quickly-barricaded department store before he can be dismembered by a horde of terrifyingly silent and efficient simians.

"What. The. _Hell_?" Kennex gasps, while Grimm slams a fist into the wall.

"They only got the better of me because there are so damned _many_ of them. If we could just get them to split up, we could take them!"

"Good luck with that, Grimm," Kennex notes, not unsympathetically. "The only ass they're after is yours. Maybe they can smell you or something."

"No," Leonard says thoughtfully, remembering the creatures' huge eyes as compared to their tiny noses and invisible ears. "They're sight hunters. If I had to guess, they're clever enough to differentiate the two of you based on your clothing alone, just like a human might."

Leonard supposes that he should be grateful that the other two at least have enough respect for him not to dismiss the observation out of hand. Grimm growls in frustration, while Kennex grimaces and mutters, "Great. So, what's the good news?"

"Actually, that _is_ the good news," Leonard informs them, pulling three identical black shirts off of a nearby rack and dropping them in Kennex's lap. He shrugs in response to the paired looks of disbelief they give him. "After all, eyes are much easier to fool than noses."

Three sets of black cargo pants and leather jackets are quickly found to go with the sleeved tees that Leonard grabbed, and the men agree to keep their own well-worn black boots on – they're similar enough, and no one wants to be caught running from ninja monkeys in uncomfortable new shoes. That done, it's Grimm who points out the issue that Leonard has forgotten.

"You've worked up some decent stubble, at least," he observes, smirking. "But if those monkeys are smart enough to make the difference between two black shirts, do you really think they won't notice that one of us has longer fur?"

Leonard bites the inside of his cheek in annoyance, but he can't actually argue the point; which is how he ends up cross-legged on the floor with Grimm kneeling behind him, hacking off most of his hair with a ridiculously sharp knife. When he finishes, it's Kennex who reaches over to ruffle the short strands into messy spikes, wearing a smirk to match Grimm's and commenting, "You've never looked better, Princess."

It's just possible that when they later separate outside of the barricade to lead the monkeys away from Grimm, Leonard makes sure that the biggest, ugliest ninja bastard in the bunch follows Kennex's trail.

Completely by accident, of course.

+1

Against all odds, the three of them do somehow make it to the designated tower some three days into their all-expense-paid Nightmareland tour. The Johns bust onto the rooftop with weapons drawn, braced for anything. True to form, their hosts oblige them by confounding their expectations and revealing an entire rooftop full of nothing. They all have a long moment to feel like complete idiots before a flash of bright light nearly blinds them, leaving the roof full of people in its aftermath.

There are half-a-dozen or so marines in tactical blacks and the same number of plain-clothes cops in Kevlar, including an android with dayglo eyes. Exclamations and snarking and backslapping commence, and Leonard is really not finding himself inclined to try to elbow his way through the oh-so-manly melee.

It's okay, though, because the next thing he hears is "Bones!" as a blond and gold blur rockets into him.

"Dammit, Jim!" he complains, but his arms come up immediately to steady them both, and he can't keep himself from smiling back at Jim's grin. He's surrounded by more gold and blue and red, someone's scanning him with a tricorder, Jim's gaze is raking over him with joy and a lingering hint of worry, and Leonard feels himself relaxing for the first time in three days. "I'm fine," he promises, and Jim lights up as the last of the concern fades from his eyes.

Of course, the first thing Jim does after that is lift a hand to Leonard's cropped hair, mischief and affection in his smile, and say, "Your haircut is adorable."

"Adorable?" Two identical affronted voices echo the comment from somewhere behind Leonard; and yeah, he is beyond through with their juvenile, misogynistic bullshit. Especially since he's frankly sure that the ladies doth protest to much.

He slides a hand around the back of Jim's neck, pulling him in for a completely uninhibited kiss. It only takes his partner a moment to catch up with the program; then he's kissing back with enthusiastic skill, sliding the hand that isn't in Leonard's hair down to the back pocket of his cargoes and squeezing appreciatively.

It's dead silent on the rooftop for a stunned moment; then Leonard hears a well-modulated male voice observe, "How interesting. I'll be sure to make the pertinent additions to your online dating profile as soon as we return home, John."

"I hate you so much, Dorian," Kennex grinds out.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the roof, another male voice clears its throat pointedly. "The first one of you who's stupid enough to say anything _will_ be eviscerated," is Grimm's flat declaration.

Leonard smiles against Jim's mouth before finally pulling away. He winks in response to his partner's amused but questioning look and turns to face his counterparts, his arm around Jim's shoulders and Jim's hand still in his back pocket.

Shit-eating grins are pretty much universal amongst both marines and cops, while Kennex and Grimm are both red to the tips of their ears. Leonard feels his own smile go positively feral as he meets their too-familiar hazel eyes for the last time.

"Been nice working with you, girls," he drawls. There are two identical cracks of startled laughter and a flash of bright light, and the rooftop is empty again.


End file.
